...For the Love of Fine Words.
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Tuesday, May 6, 2014

Raising Steam by Terry Pratchett

Rating: 3 & ½ Stars

Pratchett weaves a
tangled web. Not only does each novel have interwoven plots, but each fresh
book picks up the threads of ideas and characters from his preceding works.
Like much of Discworld it is messy, chaotic, yet with an underlying unity of
vision.

Moist Von Lipwig,
former conman, who first made his appearance in ‘Going Postal’, has despite his
reluctance had ever further eminence thrust upon him by the Patrician of Ankh
Morpork – Lord Vetinari. Lipwig is now officially in charge of the Bank, the
Post Office, and the Mint. It only stands to Vetinari’s reason that he should
also take on the responsibility of Discworld’s latest invention – the Steam
Engine.

Pratchett thereby
continues the theme of the evolving history of Discworld, and Ankh Morpork, in
particular.

We’re now a long way from the investigations of the species-diverse
Watch, and the eldrich antics of the Wizards and Witches. What he has in his
sights is an economy in tumultuous growth, say, akin to the industrialization
of Victorian England, but at hyper speed. The burgeoning of one industry
inevitably leads to the mushrooming of several others.

If nothing is as unstoppable
as an idea whose time has come, the world borne by the Giant Turtle is being engulfed
by a tsunami of new ideas, bringing together people, species, and cultures as
never before. No surprise then that there are those who fiercely resist the
changing times. The Grags, the ‘deep down Dwarfs’ are the ultra-orthodox of Dwarfdom,
many of whom strive to keep others chained to the same darkness in which they
have imprisoned themselves. Peace on DW hinges on quelling the discontent
metastasizing in the Dwarf community.

It hinges therefore on
men and women of good will and intention who are even more single-mindedly
undeterred from their purpose than their adversaries. Thankfully they’re never
in short supply in Pratchett’s books.